The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014 (SOFI)
Just recently, UNFAO released its annual report on progress of hunger reduction efforts. This year report provides an update on number of undernourishment and also progress towards meeting the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) and World Food Summit (WFS) targets.
Key Messages of SOFI this year report are:
The latest FAO estimates indicate that global hunger reduction continues: about 805 million people are estimated to be chronically undernourished in 2012–14, down more than 100 million over the last decade, and 209 million lower than in 1990–92. In the same period, the prevalence of undernourishment has fallen from 18.7 to 11.3 percent globally and from 23.4 to 13.5 percent for developing countries.
Since 1990-92, 63 countries have reached the hunger target of MDG-1 and 25 countries have achieved the more stringent WFS target. Of the 63 developing countries, 11 already had undernourishment levels below 5 percent (the methodological limit that can assure significance of the results different from zero) in 1990-1992 and have been able to keep it in that interval, and are therefore not the prime focus of the 2014 report.
The figures demonstrate that the hunger target of the Millennium Development Goal – of halving the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries by 2015 – is within reach.
Despite overall progress, marked differences across regions persist. Latin America and the Caribbean have made the greatest overall progressin increasing food security with modest progress in sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia, which have been afflicted by natural disasters and conflict.
Sustained political commitment at the highest level, with food security and nutrition as top priorities, is a prerequisite for hunger eradication. The case studies of the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014 report show that regions such as Africa and the Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as individual countries have strengthened their political commitment to food security and nutrition.
Hunger reduction requires an integrated approach, and needs to include: public and private investments to raise agricultural productivity; better access to inputs, land, services, technologies and markets; measures to promote rural development; social protection for the most vulnerable, including strengthening their resilience to conflicts and natural disasters; and specific nutrition programmes, particularly to address micronutrient deficiencies in mothers and children under five.
The relevant documents can be downloaded here and for the full report can be found here